Quotes

"I see [Marvel movie producer] Avi Arad a lot, because we live in the same neighborhood," Jackson said. "I express my interest in [working with him]. I always wanted to be Iron Man, because he was always like the rich dude who created this whole thing. He's not really kept as a superhero, he just creates stuff to make himself a superhero as a rich guy."

"I'm actually doing more in here than I've done in any of the other films. You don't have to wait until the end of the movie to see me. I'm actually around the whole movie and I do a lot more. I have action scenes and I actually do things to people in this movie."

"We're all really good friends. It's kind of funny to stand around in a room and see everybody. Thor is standing there in his costume. Captain America. Sometime's he's dressed and sometimes he's not. Scarlett is there as Black Widow. Robert Downey is there. He very seldom has his Iron Mancostume on when he's just hanging around with his buds. It's just amazing to look around the room and see all of those guys there and go, 'Okay. This is cool.' "

"Nick Fury monitors a lot of things and when he sees a need he generally goes against the grain; he rubs a lot of people the wrong way by taking actions in situations that they don’t necessarily want him to take action in but he does anyway."

"Scarlett brings a toughness and savvy that women like to see in their female characters. She is beautiful, so guys like her, but she embraces the toughness of her character and makes it seem effortless, which is very difficult to do. Guys always think, ‘I don’t care how strong a girl is, she can’t knock me out,’ but she has a bigness of character that allows her to pull off the things Black Widow does. Nick Fury has a genuine father-daughter love for Natasha that kind of transcends the job and he gives her a bit more rope than he gives most other people because of it."

"Joss Whedon is very good at what he does. He’s incredibly smart, and he’s a great director and writer. The script was constantly evolving. We would get eight or nine pages, and two days later he would say, “I was thinking about that… Now it should be this.” Once you look at it all on screen, it all comes together – and it’s very nice."

"Joss knows more about the comic book genre than most people, especially within this particular franchise. He has an understanding of the relationships of the characters and he understands the Marvel world. He put the story and the characters together in a very unique and wonderful way."

"He was very hands-on and he was always incredibly focused on set. Actors like to come in, look at the script and then say, "I'm going to make this mine." So I'd start saying words and then Joss comments, "Wait a minute... That's not what I wrote in the script." He wanted us to say exactly the same words that he wrote because that's how these comic book characters talk. He only had to tell me once and I got it right away. He understands the language of comic books and that's how we needed to sound."

"I've been reading the Fury comics since I was a kid. I remember when it was Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos in the War World II war comic books. That’s when I was introduced to him, and then I moved on. Then all of a sudden, I pick up an Avengers comic book and I was like, "Hey, that's me!" It's amazing. It's great."

"At a certain point in the production, it only took the makeup team 20 minutes to put on the eye patch and scars. However, the first time it took about an hour-and-a-half because we had to go back and forth to Joss. We’d have to ask things like, "Is this too much? Is this not enough?" We actually changed the scar to the comic book scar for this movie, which is something that a few people have noticed. If you look at the Iron Man and Thor movies, the scar looks like two little cat scratches."

"I was surprised: nobody expects a movie to become a juggernaut. You expect a certain number of people to go and see it. The Avengers was a [frick]ing juggernaut. It was amazing. All the credit totally goes to Joss because he wrote a movie being a comic-book fan, being a person who understands the genre. He’s the first person to make a comic-book movie right by making sure the comic part was in it. We didn't realize while were standing there doing it that it would be that awesome. I was never there when the Hulk was actually the Hulk, which was a major part of the success of that film. Who knew the Hulk could be that funny?"

"Everybody likes a franchise character. Bruce Willis had his and Sylvester Stallone had Rocky, so I like coming back to Nick Fury. Nick Fury's a great guy. I think a lot of people know that. I know him as something else because I've been alive longer than most of the fans that watch the movies so I know Nick Fury as the World War II veteran and all that stuff. It might be interesting to do one day but we find out little bits and pieces about Nick and we're going into Captain America 2 in late March."

"[about S.H.I.E.L.D. tv series] I don't know. I keep hearing about it, and I haven't talked to Joss about it. But in my mind, I would tend to think that he would, if nothing else, be like Charlie in Charlie's Angels. At least be the voice!"

"It's a full-on role, from the original script that I read. It's a full-on S.H.I.E.L.D. operation in Captain America. But I don't know — I'm meeting with the directors this week to see what happens."

"I don’t know [if I'll be in Avengers 2]. They don’t tell me that kind of stuff. All I know is that I am doing Captain America 2. It’s been cool. The Marvel universe continues to grow and get better. I think I have four or five pictures left on my nine-picture deal, so I will just keep showing up."

"I don’t think we begin shooting before March of next year. I know we’re shooting in London, that James Spader is Ultron and going to be the bad guy, and that we added Ms. Olsen, but I don’t know what she’s doing, if she’s on the inside or the outside. I haven’t seen a script."

"Robert’s a great guy. We love having him around. He’s an integral character in those stories. It wouldn’t have been the same without him. But you know… Marvel is Marvel, things happen. And audiences are fickle too. At some point, if Robert decides he’s not going to do it, and they put somebody else inside that Iron suit… you know, it might work. They changed War Machine, nobody noticed."

"Some of the people who used to be our enemies are now our allies. He's trying to figure out, 'Well, how do we trust those guys?' or 'How do we trust the guys that you didn't trust who don't trust you?' And explaining to him that the black and white of good guys/bad guys has now turned into this gray area."

"I just know that the Marvel Universe is there, that there are things going on, and that I have three pictures left on my nine-picture deal. That's all I know. I've done six of them, and I'm about to do seven, so I'm running out of Marvel pictures – unless they extend my contract."

"I’m sure they would recast Nick Fury, why wouldn’t they? They do that all the time. All I have to do is walk into a comic book store and see someone else’s face on the cover of that thing."

"I’m just kind of passing by there you know. I’m not doing so much, I don’t think. Because, it’s another one of those ‘people who have powers fighting people who have powers’. That’s why I didn’t get to New York in The Avengers. There’s not a lot I could do except shoot a gun."

"It's interesting to see how these newkids in class play into the sort of cozy dynamic we have now... we'll see."

"I remember Fury from when I was a kid. Back then, he was a middle-aged white guy with a cigar in his mouth during World War II. He was one of Captain America's contemporaries - which kind of makes you wonder how he stays looking so young, But I'm a realist in terms of what I watch. My audience knows how old I am and there comes a point when you think: 'How much longer can I do this kind of film and be believable in it?"

"Oh, I'd love to do a Nick Fury film, but it would probably involve all these people also in the same way. I mean, the Iron Man standalone is kind of different. But, I mean, Nick being Nick and where he is in terms of S.H.I.E.L.D. and all this other stuff, I always imagined that there would be some of these other people involved in that somewhere and in some way. It would be interesting to find out what they think his development was. I often think about his relationship to Cap. He's sort of ageless. Right now I'm not real sure, because, you know, the Nick Fury I remember was a guy with a patch in World War II or whatever. So how old is this dude? And why is he still around and so vital?"

"I was surprised that there hadn't been more outrage or outcry, but I guess the audience now that's watching these films -- a lot of them haven't gone back in that comic book history to see that, you know. When somebody says David Hasselhoff played Nick Fury, people kind of dismiss it as, "Well, that had to be f**ked up because David Hasselhoff did it." So, they don't see it that way, but yet, still this week, I look online and, you know, now people are all bitched out because Quvenzhane is playing Annie. It's kind of like, it's a f**king fantasy, you know. People do this kind of thing all the time. It's another iteration of Annie so accept it or don't accept it."

"I did! Last week! I just shot the end-of-the-season show. You're trying to get me fired and killed! I don't talk about Marvel's business. None of us do."

"I've only got two more movies in my contract. That might be the end of it unless I get an extension!"

[About playing Nick Fury] “It’s an amazing amount of fun”

“I finally met [comics writer] Mark [Millar], last year, when I was doing Kingsman, ‘cause he was on set one day, and I finally got a chance to thank him for making Nick Fury black and changing the whole dynamic. It’s really great to be the connective tissue between so many different characters in so many different films, that brings those guys together. But I’m not in Captain America 3. I can’t figure that out, but I’m not. I guess I’m still out there, trying to figure out what happened to S.H.I.E.L.D. and who these other people are.”

“But it’s an amazing honor to be that guy, to be Nick Fury, to be in that particular world, and to be a character that people believe, it’s great. I’m as grateful for being in that, as I was being in Star Wars with George [Lucas] and to play a character that people remember, like Mace Windu. It’s all great. It’s hard not to be a part of something that you know, if people study film for the next 200 years, they’ll be talking about Star Wars and Avengers series, and all that stuff.”

"Yeah! For sure, definitely. Why wouldn’t there be? There’s some way of fixing what they created, and hopefully somebody has that going on or Nick Fury is out there — wherever he is, probably hanging out with Jules and walking the world — figuring out what happened and how it got to that particular place. Maybe they’ll find out that all that was part of a ruse to get to something else also. That would be great. They’ll bring me back somehow, some way, for some reason. I mean, they didn’t have me around to referee the kids when they didn’t go to their rooms and got in this big old fight. We’ll see what happens."

"[on why both Cinematic Universes can't be good] Isn’t that a question that people at DC are asking themselves? I don’t think the Marvel people are asking themselves that question. I think there’s room for everyone to exist out here. The fact that it’s not working or doesn’t work, or people want a specific thing, that’s what makes the movies the movies and audiences audiences. Hopefully DC will make one of those movies one of these days and it’ll be as big as a Marvel movie."